FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE FIRST AMERICAN "A fine, robust telling of one of the greatest adventure stories in history." -DAVID MCCULLOUGH, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of John Adams }: x\ :" . l:! Aç !\ \ND S j . T4 t(ERICAN t' 0í <$",,,, 0 d.. ,..w.' "< i: ;, ;':;: ,;.. , i ; ",f""4..4 y , .;:: "." ...J" :t.-: ::."::/: :"..:;: ::?::". :., .: - tl . : i , " ,tv: :'{4 . ,:. '. :,::::?:' r'?! . ... . ..<.. . .. 1. j: n;11 :r l Q 1;(:J .;. .:. .':':':' .:.:. .. . '. ,-.: < ':=. : .': '-':-.-.':': :.: : ::.". .:. -:- :.' ".: ......... .",. .". <.,' ,. .......... '1<: , :. : ;;o' , u , ' ;: , :.'J} , ' ;:'}. \;....". " a "..' '''',''".""--,"-,,. , , " , ''' , ''' , '' , "',' ' I "".. " .."".,--"...."'-- <"'::" "":'-"' . ":.:-..:," : "';:':'.:. :. ... : ' '--:- ':"-. : - "..:.":.: . ..::.:. .. . _ _ ...., d,".,'<<, .. ,.,.... ..-.", .. ....... . g::':: .: : I:'..... ::::=:: -:;: ? Æ?\ \S : i =-::? .:?::: ..........-....,.... .. ... ... ... ..... .. ... ...:.:..:.:. .:.:. .:. . .:. . '..,:- -:- ... g: C} . ......: _ _ : :: :::} ::-. :.-.:: :.- ::: ._' :. 3.- . ::; . .{: :.> ..::: . T" " """""""" . " -L- ' D " " ,', " , ",.", ) )I; ;;; : G; ._ . A. ì\ lE 'R.lCJ\'N lJSH AN!) , DRE1\l\i "An engrossing, multifaceted history.... Its author, like the miners of the Gold Rush themselves, leaves no stone unturned." -JANET MASLIN, The New York Times "The unforgettable story of California and the Gold Rush- big, brassy, raucous - is one of dreams made and dashed.. great destinies forged"J and of endlessly fascinating heroes, scoundrels, and · fi T . fi " mls ItS.... 1 errl IC. -JAY WINIK, author of April 1865 $,Doutleday Avmlable wherever books are sold · Also available on CD from Random House Audio · A Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and the History Book Club www.theageofgold.com · www.hwbrands.com 80 THE NEW YORKER., SEPTEMBER 30, 2002 :.. . :, ::. NEW YOR.K JOUR.NAL BUMPING INTO MR.. R.AVIOLI A theory of busyness, and its hero. BY ADAM GOPNIK .:J I ] ',:" '... l 'f M y daughter Olivia, who just turned three, has an imaginary friend whose name is Charlie Ravioli. Olivia is growing up in Manhattan, and so Char- lie Ravioli has a lot of local traits: he lives in an apartment "on Madison and Lex- ington," he dines on grilled chicken, :fruit, and water, and, having reached the age of seven and a halL he feels, or is thought, "old." But the most peculiarly local thing about Oliviàs imaginary playmate is this: he is always too busy to play with her. She holds her toy cell phone up to her ear, and we hear her talk into it: "Ravioli? It's Olivia. . . It's Olivia. Come and play? O.K. Call me. Bye." Then she snaps it shut, and shakes her head. "I always get his machine," she says. Or she will say; "I spoke to Ravioli todar" "Did you have fun?" my wife and I ask. "No. He was busy working. On a television" (leaving it up in the air if he repairs electronic de- vices or has his own talk show). On a good day; she "bumps into" her invisible friend and they go to a coffee shop. "I bumped into Charlie Ravioli," she announces at dinner (after a day when, of course, she stayed home, played, had a nap, had lunch, paid a visit to the Central Park Zoo, and then had another nap). "We had coffee, but then he had to run." She sighs, sometimes, at her in- ability to make their schedtÙes mesh, but she accepts it as inevitable, just the way life is. "I bumped into Charlie Ravioli d " h " H ki " to ay, s e says. e was wor ng. Then she adds brightly; "But we hopped into a taxi." What happened then? we ask. "We grabbed lunch," she says. It seemed obvious that Ravioli was a romantic figure of the big exotic life that went on outside her little limited life of parks and playgrounds-drawn, in par- ticular, from a nearly perfect, mynah- bird-like imitation of the words she hears her mother use when she ta1ks about her day with her friends. ("How was your day?" Sighing: "Oh, you know: I tried to make a date with Meg, but I cotÙdn't find her, so I left a message on her machine. Then I bumped into Emily after that meeting I had in SoHo, and we had cof- fee and then she had to run, but by then Meg had reached me on my cell and we arranged. . .") I was concerned, though, that Charlie Ravioli might also be the sign of some "trauma," some loneliness in 0 livia's life reflected in imaginary form. "It seems odd to have an imaginary playmate who's always too busy to play with you," Martha, my wife, said to me. "Shouldn't your imaginary playmate be someone you tell secrets to and, I don't know; sing songs with? It shouldn't be someone who's always hopping into taxis." We thought, at first, that her older brother Luke might be the original of Charlie Ravioli. (For one thing, he is also seven and a halL though we were fairly sure that this age was merely Oliviàs marker for As Old as Man Can Be.) He is too busy to play with her much anymore. He has become a true New York child, with the schedtÙe of a Cabinet secretary: chess club on Monday; T-ball on Tuesday; tournament on Saturday; play dates and after-school conferences to fill in the gaps. But Olivia, though she counts days, does not yet really have days. She has a day; and into this day she has introduced the figure of Charlie Ravioli-in order, it dawned on us, to insist that she does have days, be- cause she is too harried to share them, that she does have an independent social life, by virtue of being too busy to have one. Yet Charlie Ravioli was becoming so constant and oddly discouraging a com- panion-"He cancelled lunch. Again," Olivia would say-that we thought we ought to look into it. One of my sisters is a developmental psychologist who spe- cializes in close scientific studies of what goes on inside the heads of one- and two- and three-year-olds. Though she grew up in the nervy East, she lives in California now, where she grows basil in her garden and jars her own organic mar- malades. I e-mailed this sister for help